Do system specs matter much anymore for PC gamers? I mean all the AAA studios are releasing on the XBOX now which is what 6 years old? So I would imagine most PC's out there are fine running todays games.

Since PB has - as far as I know - a huge fan base in Germany, and in Germany the PC sales still work, it does make sense, imho.

—  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Originally Posted by Saxon1974
Do system specs matter much anymore for PC gamers? I mean all the AAA studios are releasing on the XBOX now which is what 6 years old? So I would imagine most PC's out there are fine running todays games.

Sadly it doesn't work that way … many games that run fine on the X360 run like crap on the PC …

Originally Posted by CountChocula
I think what Saxon is referring to is that you don't need the most expensive, top-of-the-line PC to run games at high resolution anymore.

I understand.

—  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Originally Posted by Gorath
Yes, it is so. Often publishers aren't willing to allocate a decent budget for good PC port. Instead they tell the intern to recompile this shit for PC, and if it runs it will be shipped.

Sad but true … but fortunately for Risen 2 I *know* we'll be on the good side. Just wonder if the X360 port will fare better than last time?

The ports will be better. Deep Silver spent a lot of marketing Euros and a whole show (GC) to send the message that the ports are trailing only a few weeks behind this time, that there's more budget for them and PB communicates directly with Wizarbox. It was pretty much the only story they sold in Köln.

It's just a sad state of affairs for me when the only thing that I can push my computer with is MMOs. And this would be fine if the lack of graphical improvements was compensated for by evolving gameplay, but generally the opposite is true.

Oh well. Dead horse and all that. Hopefully PB comes through.

And, as an aside, noone should ever become compacent with the status quo. Whether it's economical or technological, you should always push for the future, not stagnate in the past.

Originally Posted by Drithius
And, as an aside, noone should ever become compacent with the status quo. Whether it's economical or technological, you should always push for the future, not stagnate in the past.

In my case, I'm more interested in bigger game worlds with better quest design and storytelling, and less interested in the most demanding graphics functionality.

Witcher 2 runs like crap on the lowest settings, but I'm pleased that I can run Skyrim and many other games on my laptop at 1920x1080. I would prefer not to have to buy a gaming desktop in order to play games at 1080p resolution.

If the prevalence of console hardware means that developers must devote resources to better optimization so that games run well on weaker hardware, I'm glad to benefit from this trend.

Yes, I wish they would do away with pc' s and console and make every game for my phone so I wont have to spend any money. While there at it they can serve mcdonalds at 5 star restaurants and put 4 cylinders in ferrari's. So I can live the high life.

Originally Posted by CountChocula
Is that so? I'm not familiar with these cases of games running with better frame rate on Xbox than PC. (Although I know that sometimes folks complain about the UI being too "consolized.")

GTA4 was one of the first high profile shitty ports. PCs that could run most multiplatform titles with faster and better graphics than the console iterations were struggling to match the console's version of GTA. The last couple of assassin's creed deliveries that came out over the past year also run slower on the pc than the first two titles from 2007/09 despite no significant graphical improvements. They can afford to underoptimize pc versions of new games when a current 50$ vidcard is enough to double the visual quality you get from a console.

I won't be surprised if the console version of TW2 or Risen2 ends up looking better than the pc version when ran on some high-end rigs from 2007/08 out of shitty optimization.

I've been happy with the way 3D graphics look since the gamecube and I appreciate that thanks to the current console's long life-cycles a high-end pc from 2006 can still run most new games in high details, I hated it when pcs became obsolete in a year.

I'm only getting a new pc when it is capable of running the same games as the xbox3 in full glory.

Originally Posted by KapitanUnterhosen
GTA4 was one of the first high profile shitty ports. PCs that could run most console ports with faster and better graphics than the console versions were struggling to match the console's version of GTA.

Wow, that is simply inexcusable. The game wasn't even running at console settings (1280x720 with no AA, AF, etc.)?